Category: CHSBT Blog Posts

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Leaving the 1 for the 99

Oh, the overwhelming, never-ending, spirit-wrecking truth that we aren’t God.  

Wouldn’t it be great to be omnipotent, omnipresent, and omniscient?  For many of our students, we imagine small changes we could give them to improve their lives: a better grasp of the English language, a more thorough understanding of the effects of American isolationism in the 1920s, proficiency in systems of equations, a steady hand with the scalpel, time management, a better digestive system on Taco Tuesday.

But then we have those class-clowning, persistent detention-getting, constantly rebelling, quietly suffering students.  For sociological purposes, we call them “at-risk.” For many of us, we call them our most painful memories of teaching.  What we wouldn’t give to dramatically change their lives. And yet, we often give very little, if anything.

Continue reading “Leaving the 1 for the 99”
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Teaching International (ELL) Students

As I’ve written previously, our international students (ELL for the sake of brevity), predominately from China, come with needs and challenges and strengths that we are blessed with a chance to address. It truly is global missions brought to America.

As I promised in the previous article and failed to deliver until months later, here are some tips for teaching this population.

  1. Check your biases and prejudices

Though my intention in my first article was to chisel away at these things that exist in all of us, it bears a reminder for teaching this population.  I have seen many wonderful Christians carry anger and hostility for our international students for merely being who they are: teenagers living thousands of miles away in a totally different culture, immersed in a school that is not using their primary language, all without daily parental contact.

Continue reading “Teaching International (ELL) Students”
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When it’s Dust

dust“We need a coat with two pockets. In one pocket there is dust, and in the other pocket there is gold. We need a coat with two pockets to remind us who we are.”
― Parker Palmer

Parker Palmer– teacher, sociologist, social reformer– inspiration a-plenty for me. He wrote The Courage to Teach. It’s the single teacher text that speaks to my teacher heart. His commentary on education is opposite of what we, as educators, seem to produce the most of: the technical, the distant, the abstract… the majority of our sacred texts are written this way. They are helpful. But Palmer insists that we teach from the essence of who we are, and if we want to grow as teachers, we must learn to talk to each out about our inner lives.

My teaching coat has two pockets: one full of gold, one full of dust. Continue reading “When it’s Dust”

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When Doubt and Belief are Twins

There are a lot of beliefs in our culture, beliefs the likes of…

• Donald Trump is racist
• Lady Gaga is a bad influence
• Science and the Bible do not mix
• You should act upon whatever sexual orientation and desires you have or think you may have
• Kanye West is a genius
• Humans evolved from a single-celled organism over millions of years
• The Earth is thousands of years old
• The Big Bang model explains the beginning of the universe
• You can be a good person without believing in God
• Religion is responsible for most wars

Now, whether or not you identify as a Christian, I image you would either hold to – or doubt – at least one of the above beliefs.

Here are some quick points… First: it is NOT within the scope of this post to debate whether or not any of the items in this list are TRUE or FALSE. Second: doubt is healthy; doubt in and of itself is not a problem. What is a problem, however (and where it gets sticky), is when our doubt becomes unhealthy. Therefore, it is 100% within the scope of this post to challenge you on whether or not how you carry your beliefs – or doubts – reflects a commitment to truth. After all, why believe in something if it isn’t true?

Answer: NO reason at all!

So how is doubt unhealthy? Continue reading “When Doubt and Belief are Twins”

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The Way of Peace

“You’re too idealistic”

“Mr. Randolph, that sounds an awful lot like socialism….are you a socialist?”

“Do you even support our troops, cause you sound unpatriotic”

“Ever hear of “just-war” theory Mr. Randolph….huh, huh?” (imagine the ever so slight puffing up of the chest)

I’ve come across each of these statements, and many more (at least the ones people are willing to express while in my presence) and more often than not it is when discussing Jesus’ sermon on the mount….that radical, counterintuitive, counter cultural discourse recorded in the Gospel according to Matthew. Even the fact that I refer to the sermon as radical might give you some insight into which lens I use by which to understand those powerful words!

Yes, I am idealistic, I am a follower of Jesus! I’m crazy enough to believe, like many of you reading this, that the creator of the universe stepped into our reality, wearing flesh like us, and that he offered us another way to live and interact with the world around us. I’m crazy enough to believe that the beautiful system of Shalom, as presented in the opening poem of Genesis, paints a picture of whole and complete relationships between humans and God, humans and other humans, humans and the earth and each individual human with herself/himself. I’m idealistic enough to believe, although humanity has contributed to the destruction of Shalom, that the way of Jesus offers us the path towards the restoration of all things! I’m idealistic enough to believe Jesus when he teaches us to pray that what goes on in the Kingdom of God would also manifest here on earth all around us! I’m crazy enough to believe that each individual has a role to play in the restoration process…..I’m not a socialist, I’m a broken, hypocritical, cynical but also idealistic to a fault, dreamer, and follower of the way of weakness, the way of Jesus.

My brother-in-law is in the U.S. Navy… Continue reading “The Way of Peace”

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Professional Christian Struggles

I am a professional Christian.

Note, that I’m not saying I’m a superior Christian, or even a good one.

Just professional.

Meaning: as my primary and secondary sources of income, I do stuff that normal Christians are supposed to do (talk about Jesus, pray for people, study theology, etc). Considering the fact that most other Christians do this stuff for free, it’s a pretty sweet gig. Anyone that teaches at a Christian school is at least semi-pro, and anyone who works as a Bible teacher or in any church role called “ministry” is probably a professional Christian as well. And while there are a lot of cool benefits to being a professional Christian, there is a unique set of challenges that comes with being a professional Christian.

Opinions can change… unless you’re a pro.

When students spend 5 hours a week in your Bible class, or parishioners spend 1-2 hours a week listening to your sermons, they begin to expect a certain line of thinking that points to the underlying beliefs of any given professional Christian. Continue reading “Professional Christian Struggles”

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[Un]holy Ghosts

One of my students swears that doors open and close in her house because of paranormal activity… she brought this up on a spiritual leadership retreat last summer.

I spend half of my time as a teacher trying to convince students that there is a supernatural (dare I say paranormal?) being called God. But when I hear stories like this, my knee-jerk reaction is to try to explain why air conditioners, open windows, and soffit vents cause weird stuff to happen. Even things like Ouija boards Continue reading “[Un]holy Ghosts”

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Conversation Cures

fish in solitude - diversity concept, racism and isolation

The change began one afternoon this summer when I was chatting out by the pool with a friend. She has two teenage daughters; I have two early school-aged daughters. I’m always curious about her insights on parenting because a) she’s a fantastic parent b) I can get an idea of what’s down the pike in my own parenting journey.

I asked what her family has been up to. “Lately, we’ve all been reading The Tech-Wise Family, so we can prepare ourselves for when Allie gets a smart phone.”

“Wow! Allie is getting a smart phone?” I was surprised. Allie is a freshman in high school, the oldest daughter. They’d been able to put off smart phones for the girls until now. I guess I assumed it was never going to happen.

The plan was for everyone in the family to read the book and then for Allie to record her goals and some of her own guidelines for her new smartphone. She would present these to her family and they would make any edits together. “Our goal,” my friend said, “is to keep technology in it’s proper place. Thus far, we’ve enjoyed being a family defined by nightly dinners, outings, adventures and deep conversation. We know the smartphone can be a helpful tool, but we don’t want it to be a driving force.”

My friend then pointed me to an article in the Atlantic about post-millenials (iGen) and the smartphone habits they carry that link them to increased rates in depression, anxiety and even suicidal ideation. More outstanding to me, however, was iGen’s decrease in activity outside the home, decrease in activities without parents (fewer post-millenials are choosing to get their drivers license in high school and thus rely on parents to drive) and decrease in teenage pregnancy (along with other “risky behaviors”). In short: iGen are safer (physically) and less active as they practice retreat into the various worlds of their phones.

In short-short: this generation, by and large, are on their phones more that they are with actual people.

Continue reading “Conversation Cures”

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Pinkies, Mountains, and Unanswered Prayers

I have a friend named Bob who does miraculous baby prayers.

A sophomore asked me a question about prayer from Mark 11 and it reminded me of Bob.

When asked if we wanted kids, for the first 5 years of marriage, Katie and I would answer “cuss no!” So, when Bob offered to pray for us in a field in Mexico, we said, “No, we’re good.”

And he simply said, “Whenever you’re ready.”

Around year 5 or 6 we slowly shifted from “Cuss no!” to “maybe…” to “yeah, we want to have a kid!” Nevertheless, after a few years of trying to procreate (ßthat’s a weird sentence to write and publish) we were still childless. We read books, visited doctors, and charted hormones. Nothin.

Then we remembered Bob, and we were going to see him in Mexico that April, so we thought, “Why not?”

We caught him in a dirt parking lot and asked for prayer.
He had Katie and I hold each other’s one hand, while holding out our pinkies on our free hand. He grabbed each of our pinkies and said “Lord, however, whenever, Amen.”

2 months later Katie was pregnant.

Drop the mic. Play the walkout music. Release the balloons. God gets the glory.

We are deeply grateful for what happened in that period of time… and our daughter is unreasonably awesome… so we feel immeasurably blessed.

But a strange side-effect is that it has really messed with our prayer life.

Here’s why: Continue reading “Pinkies, Mountains, and Unanswered Prayers”

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Bringing 耶稣 (Yēsū) (Jesus) to China in America

 

Part 1:  Understanding where our Chinese students are at

God has called me to go on two mission trips.  One to Istanbul (Merhaba arkadaşlar) and another to Guatemala (Hola, amigos).  Those of us who have gone on trips know the cross-cultural beauty of these experiences: the depth of human connectedness, the tragedy of spiritual darkness, the hope in the Gospel, the power of the name of Jesus / Isa / Jesús / יֵשׁוּ הַנוֹצרִי / యేసు.

Sorry, I got a little Chris Tomlin-y on that last part.

Continue reading “Bringing 耶稣 (Yēsū) (Jesus) to China in America”